Parasites, Pathogens, and Progress: Diseases and Economic Development

Robert A. McGuire and Philip R.P. Coelho

Abstract

This book integrates biological and economic perspectives into an explanation of the historical development of humanity and the economy, paying particular attention to the American experience, its history, and its development. In their pathbreaking examination of the impact of population growth and parasitic diseases, the authors contend that interpretations of history which minimize or ignore the physical environment are incomplete or wrong. They emphasize the paradoxical impact of population growth and density on progress. An increased population leads to increased market size, specializatio ... More

This book integrates biological and economic perspectives into an explanation of the historical development of humanity and the economy, paying particular attention to the American experience, its history, and its development. In their pathbreaking examination of the impact of population growth and parasitic diseases, the authors contend that interpretations of history which minimize or ignore the physical environment are incomplete or wrong. They emphasize the paradoxical impact of population growth and density on progress. An increased population leads to increased market size, specialization, productivity, and living standards. Simultaneously, increased population density can provide an ecological niche for pathogens and parasites that prey upon humanity, increasing morbidity and mortality. The tension between diseases and progress continues, with progress dominant since the late 1800s. Integral to their story are the differential effects of diseases on different ethnic (racial) groups. The authors show that the Europeanization of the Americas, for example, was caused by Old World diseases unwittingly brought to the New World, not by superior technology and weaponry. The decimation of Native Americans by pathogens vastly exceeded that caused by war and human predation. The authors combine biological and economic analyses to explain the concentration of African slaves in the American South. African labor was more profitable in the South because Africans’ evolutionary heritage enabled them to resist the diseases that became established there; conversely, their ancestral heritage made them susceptible to northern “cold-weather” diseases. European disease resistance and susceptibilities were the opposite regionally.

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